ATL06LA110 · Arter RV6
Arter RV6 · Accident: loss of control in flight while maneuvering
From 3A1 · Cullman, AL to 5MO · Harvest, AL
Event
- NTSB case
- ATL06LA110
- Event typeAccident: someone killed or seriously injured, or the aircraft substantially damaged (NTSB definition). Incident: an occurrence that affected or could have affected safety, short of that. Glossary
- Accident
- InvestigationHow far the investigation had got when the record was published: preliminary, ongoing, final or completed. Unknown where the source does not say. Glossary
- Completed
- API-reported fatalities
- 1 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- Unknown
- OperationWhat kind of flying it was, grouped by the rules it flew under: airline (US Part 121), air taxi and commuter (Part 135), general aviation (Part 91 and similar), military or government. Glossary
- General aviation
- WeatherVisual meteorological conditions (VMC): good enough to fly by looking outside. Instrument conditions (IMC): cloud or low visibility, flying by instruments. Glossary
- Visual Meteorological Cond
Arter RV6
- Aircraft type
- Arter RV6
- Category
- Airplane
- RegistrationThe aircraft's tail number, such as N12345 or G-ABCD. Registrations are reissued, so the same one years apart can be a different aircraft. Glossary
- N112WA
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From 3A1 · Cullman, ALTo 5MO · Harvest, AL
- Aircraft age
- Not recorded
- Flight rulesThe regulations the flight operated under: in the US, Part 91 (general aviation), Part 121 (airlines), Part 135 (air taxi and commuter) and others; for flights abroad, the NTSB's coarser commercial or non-commercial code. Glossary
- Part 91: General Aviation
- Phase of flightThe stage of the flight when things started to go wrong: standing, taxi, takeoff, initial climb, en route, maneuvering, approach or landing. Glossary
- Maneuvering
- First occurrenceThe single coded event the NTSB judges best describes what happened (records from 2008 on). Older records name the first occurrence in the sequence instead. Glossary
- Loss of control in flight
- Also codedOther events the NTSB coded in the sequence, such as a wire strike after a loss of power. Flight Findings uses them for its kinds of event. Glossary
- Stall; Tree(s)
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Substantial
Cause areas
- Pilot in command › Airspeed, not maintained
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
A witness stated that he was driving on U.S. Highway 31 at 0650 and noticed a low flying airplane buzzing the City of Hartselle and lining up to land at a local airport. The witness continued to the airport to talk the pilot; however upon arrival at the airport the airplane was not there. Another witness stated that he was outside his home before 0700 and observed the airplane flying south southeast in the vicinity of the airport. He observed the airplane make a steep bank estimated at about 45-degrees and level out. The witness stated that he thought the airplane was going to land at the airport so he went inside his house. A short time later his mother departed his home with his daughter and the witness heard a car horn blowing. The witness went outside to investigate and was informed by his mother that there was an airplane inverted in a field adjacent to his home. The witness went to the airplane and observed one occupant who appeared to be fatally injured. Several pilots from the deceased pilot's home base stated that the deceased pilot often made high speed passes, and performed aerobatic maneuvers over and around the airport area, and runway. Examination of the airplane revealed the airplane collided with the ground in a descending nose down attitude. The left wing was pushed aft and the leading edge of the left wing exhibited accordion crushing. Examination of the engine assembly and accessories, airframe, and flight controls revealed no evidence of a precrash mechanical failure or malfunction. Review of performance data for the RV6 airplane revealed the airplane will stall at 49 mph. Post-mortem toxicology testing revealed ethanol in the pilot's blood (.061 percent), urine, and vitreous fluid.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain airspeed while maneuvering resulting in an inadvertent stall and collision with trees and the ground. Factor in the accident were the pilot's ostentatious display and impairment due to alcohol.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ATL06LA110
- Event ID
- 20060725X01010
- Case number
- ATL06LA110
- Dataset
- historical-pre2008
- Source SHA-256
- 89e2df6d848e7ab3b42e7d7c7a03ff403303057a26ca04c95b3ea67201c3ce74
Source notes (4)
- Unreviewed is an editorial label, not an investigation status. API-sourced is not report-checked or human-reviewed. Explicit event totals are used without summing aircraft injury tables; onboard allocation is withheld. Unknown values remain unknown. The operation category is mapped from the NTSB-reported FAR part and has not been reviewed.
- Filled from the NTSB case API where the bulk record had no value: investigation status, coordinates. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date, which is the same as the UTC date the NTSB stores.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 581061e2dd0ccdd93ebbbb7069f54f42449ee1fb507cd616bb1fdb78a55a492b; retrieved 2026-09-20T17:08:10.395Z.